


give you my best

by sapphicish



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, also it's kath but they share a tag so, not explicitly romantic but it's y'know..., spongebob limp wrist meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26386945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: “She grabbed me. That...woman. She said terrible things, terrible things about me, about what I did, and—touched me. I don't like that. I don't like her. I don't like anyone here.”"Do you like me?"
Relationships: Joan Ferguson & Marie Winter, Joan Ferguson/Marie Winter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	give you my best

**Author's Note:**

> only about 80%(???) combed for mistakes and then i got lazy so don't pay attention to any errors u find. also i dont know how wentworth prison protocols work or any prison protocols or protocols in general and i dont care hehehe

Marie slipped into Kath's cell a few minutes after the alarms stopped ringing and Miles came by to bat at the bars of the gate and tell everyone to _shut the fuck up, stop asking questions, go the fuck to bed,_ even though she also seemed a little shaken herself. She had seen only a glimpse of the woman she'd left behind in the shower block as she returned, a flash of greying hair and trembling hands as her cell door shut like she would slam it if she could, if she even dared to try. 

Then Marie had gotten too swept up in a card game with Reb and Lou, the latter spending most of the game insisting that she was cheating even though it turned out that Reb was doing better than either of them somehow, and it wasn't until the code rang out and the count – a little later and a little more aggressive than usual – was called to a close that they all called it a night and went off, Lou and Reb to one cell and Marie to hers. She counted the minutes that passed until, finally, silence broke over the prison – not for long, as the other inmates soon started up their usual chant of _freak freak freak freakfreakfreak_ until it hurt Marie's head – and she crept back into Kath's cell.

It was more or less exactly what she had expected, and a part of her ached dully knowing that she should have stuck around, _tried,_ only the image of Allie turning on her again next had been too much to bear in the moment. And it was none of her business. This Kath, Joan, _whoever_ ordeal was none of her business.

Marie wanted to keep her head down, and that meant knowing these things, and keeping away from these things, so that she lived to see another day and the next.

Only it seemed to be everyone's business, judging by the chants that faded in and out, starting up again just a few minutes after each time it died away, started by a new prisoner whose throat wasn't nearly as raw from the yelling as the last. Marie really was getting tired of it, and soon enough so would they – but for now, they were rabid and ravenous for the blood of a woman who Marie knew for a fact didn't remember a single one of their faces.

She could only imagine the outrage if they ever all found out about the amnesia as a collective, and _believed_ it. Once a predator turned vulnerable prey, throat bared to the masses?

Marie hadn't bothered thinking of it much before Kath's arrival, but now that she knew the anger that Joan Ferguson's mere presence incited in the women, she couldn't imagine how or why she had ever been let into General in the first place. From what she'd gathered from a good deal of eavesdropping, it had been an executive decision and Lou Kelly had taken place at her side as unofficial bodyguard, but really, from what Marie could tell this far into the situation, Lou wasn't doing a great job of guarding anything.

Kath was laid out on her bed, her hands tucked away in the teal of her jumper, her mouth moving silently in the dark. When Marie strained to listen closer she could hear words, none of which made sense to her in their jumble. _No more no more no more I don't want it I didn't do it stop it stop it stop it leave me alone leave me alone no more no more nononononono_ until it all ran together, blurring, and saliva bubbled to the corners of Kath's lips.

Marie stood there against the wall just inside the door for a minute, and then cleared her throat when she realized that there was no way in Hell or on Earth that she would be given any attention at all unless she gave a little nudge.

Those deep, dark eyes darted to her, and Kath froze.

There was no more mumbling.

“Hey,” Marie said, as softly as she could manage. “It's all right. I just wanted to come and check up on you. See how you're settling in. And if you're—” Hurt? Tormented? Scared? The answer seemed to be all three, and she didn't need an answer, so she let her voice drift off.

Kath moaned. “No more,” she begged, in a voice so filled with desperate agony that it gave Marie pause. Not a lot of things gave her pause. Sure, she had always been a delicate touch, from the very get-go: her insistence on keeping out of the uglier parts of her business, her habit of cleaning up her girls after particularly rough nights, her affection for small broken things from stray dogs to Allie (not that there was much of a difference between the two, in retrospect), but at the end of the day it all blended together and she understood exactly what had to be done and what would be done.

This was something else, something different.

—and then it passed, that feeling, and Marie closed the distance, reaching out to touch Kath, who immediately recoiled against the wall, violently enough that Marie heard the thud of her spine and had to wince in sympathy. “Don't, don't, don't...” Kath whispered, and it sounded like it was to herself as much as it was to Marie.

Marie swallowed back the sigh she wanted to let escape, and leaned down instead, slowly pushing herself back on her haunches by Kath's bedside. “Hey,” she said, and again until Kath's eyes snapped open to look at her. She raised her hands, fingers splayed open and harmless the way that came almost naturally to her at this point. “It's okay. I won't touch you. Can I be here? Would you rather be alone?”

Kath stared at her, eyes wide and helpless. Her chest drifted upward, fell, raised again; it froze there, until her face turned pale and she sucked in a harsh breath.

“I'll stay here, then, shall I?” Marie sat back on her heels. “We can spend some more time together, yeah? Is that okay, sweetheart?”

Still no answer, but at this point Marie wasn't expecting it—just when Kath seemed to be able to remember how to breathe, she stopped again, and Marie only refrained from coaxing her through it because of the way she flinched and tensed up whenever she spoke, and because it was unlikely she'd be listened to. Kath's gaze was distant and frantic, like it was at once beyond the present and trapped in it. The dim slice of golden light shone against one side of her face, then the other when she turned her head, gulping thickly. Her hair was a tangled mess, a ruined halo around her and on the pillow under her.

When Marie saw the faint red scratches at her temples, she could imagine it perfectly: shaky, panicked fingers raking through her hair, at her scalp, _no more no more._ Her tongue clicked softly against the roof of her mouth. “Kath...”

“Why are you calling me that,” came the low, rasping voice. The dark eyes were staring at the ceiling again, quiet and empty.

Marie pressed her palms flat to her knees, pushing back the urge to reach out and touch. It was extraordinarily difficult thing to achieve. There was always the voice inside her, the feeling. Touch the hair, touch the hands, let it linger. Make the connection.

She couldn't remember who had taught her that; maybe life, maybe herself.

“You asked me to,” she said.

“I am not Kath.” A low, broken, keening sort of sound, then silence. Kath inhaled like there was a hole in her lung, air leaking out, a wheeze. “I am not Joan.”

“You can be both.” Marie was only a little surprised to find that she meant it, that she believed it. She didn't know Joan Ferguson, not like Allie did, not like the rest of the prison did. She only knew the Joan Ferguson in the here and now, the Joan Ferguson that was barely. Barely present, barely alive, barely breathing, barely a living thing.

It was a sad, sad sight.

“Or neither,” Kath said dully.

“Or neither,” Marie agreed. “But for now, if it's all right, and since you asked me when we met, I think I'll keep calling you Kath. It's a nice name.”

“No one else calls me that. Just you and Dr. Miller. No one else believes me.” Kath took a deep breath, her jaw working. “You two...have been very kind.”

“Calling someone by the name they want to be called by isn't hard, darling. It's just...common decency. For most people.”

“And you didn't know me before,” Kath said.

“And I didn't know you before,” Marie agreed.

It set off another round of silent, slow shaking, and the tall, once intimidating person that Marie had seen in papers and on news outlets everywhere shortly before her arrival at Wentworth seemed to be no more when she curled up with her back to Marie, facing the wall. Fully dressed in everything but her shoes, she pulled the sheets up until they wrapped around her shoulders and veiled her entirely from view.

“I'm glad I know you now,” Marie tried, but there was no response, and she turned and sat back against the bed, looking at the wall opposite. Her eyes drifted shut; she'd been getting on and off headaches since the encounter with Allie, the one she was very carefully not referring to as anything but confrontation or meeting or encounter in her head. One was coming on now, slowly, throbbing.

“She grabbed me. That...woman. She said terrible things, terrible things about me, about what I did, and—touched me. I don't like that. I don't like her. I don't like anyone here.” Kath's voice was a whisper, dark and deep and full of confused, quivering desperation, touching something deep inside of Marie she hadn't even known could be touched anymore. But it was the same thing that was touched when people hurt Allie, when Critter had hurt Reb, when Reb cried in her arms. Zara's voice, a niggling little remnant from what felt like ages past, whispered in the back of her head, _that's weakness._

And it was.

Marie held onto it anyway.

She also didn't say what she wanted to say, which was something selfish along the lines of, _at least she didn't tie you to a chair and waterboard you, at least she didn't leave you limp and drained and shivering and wet on the floor of her cell, at least she didn't almost slit your throat over a misunderstanding over a girl she's known for a minute compared to how long she's known you._ At least there was that. Some semblance of dignity and hope left. But then she turned to look at Kath, and she saw none of that. She saw her broad back, shivering, and the large, long-fingered hands which looked so small hidden in her sleeves, fingertips peeking out just over the edge of the sheets.

If there was any dignity or hope in that, she couldn't find it.

“Do you like me?” Marie asked, as gently as she could, putting a little smile into her voice so that Kath could feel it even if she couldn't see it.

Kath was so silent for a moment that Marie thought maybe she'd misjudged the situation, overstepped or offended, but then the woman's head twitched a little, down against the pillow and up again. She was nodding, and this time Marie didn't have to put in the effort to smile. It came naturally.

“Good. I like you too. And I'm sorry, for Allie. She wasn't...always like that. This place, it – changed her. It changes a lot of people.”

Kath turned over onto her back, and then onto her other side, and Marie was confronted up close and personal with the look in her eyes, which seemed more like endless black tunnels. The look on her face was worn and exhausted, her eyes bloodshot from what must have been a good deal of crying, though Marie saw no trace of tears now. Her breath smelled like the prison-issued mint toothpaste, and like fear, bright and wicked and soaking her teeth like fresh spit. _No more no more no more._

“You know her?”

“I did. I used to.” Marie thought about Allie, snarling and wild, and the water poured on her face, drowning out everything. Allie on top of her, hand tight around her face, a shiv in her hand. Allie hurting her, Allie shooting her, Allie pouring the water—Allie from before: gentle, soft, needy. Curled up against her, hands in her hair, smiling, laughing, playing with Danny...

“I don't know what they want from me,” Kath murmured closely, like a secret all to themselves, and Marie was shaken out of it all. “What _anyone_ wants from me.”

Marie reached up slowly, fingers creeping over the edge of the mattress. “You'll be all right,” she said lowly, knowing that it sounded like a promise, and one she couldn't keep. “I know it's hard.”

Kath gazed at her fingers, then at her face. Her eyes fell shut, then snapped open again—shut, then open, weak and quick. Marie was reminded of a dying butterfly, its last small wing-beats a shivering struggle to keep going. “Why—“ She swallowed. “What happened? The—“ She gestured faintly upwards at nothing in particular, but Marie understood the gesture as well as if she'd done it herself.

“The alarms. Yeah. Seems like there's been an accident somewhere.” Accident, she knew, was not the right word – and judging by the panic in Miles' eyes, it hadn't just been some throwaway incident with a throwaway inmate. Or maybe that wasn't being fair to her—of all the screws in the prison, Miles was probably one of the ones Marie liked the most.

Naturally. She was easy to bribe, and Marie liked people that were easy to bribe.

“Is someone dead?” Kath sounded softly horrified.

“Probably not,” she said honestly, fighting off the urge to shrug the conversation away. Kath might have thought her heartless then, and though Marie wasn't sure why that mattered so much to her in the moment, it did. “We wouldn't be here right now if someone was. They'd be extending the count and searching our blocks, doing interrogations...everything they like to do.”

Kath was silent again, her eyes closing, opening, closing, opening...

“Sleep,” Marie said, fingers curling in the sheets so she wouldn't touch her. “You look tired. This place takes a lot from a person. You have to sleep when you can.”

Kath tilted her head down. “I don't want to,” she said, her voice strained. “They won't...” She sucked in one of those deep breaths, familiar, a noise she'd come to associate with this, and with the person in front of her. “They won't stop.”

In the stark silence in the cell, the noise outside roared, right on time like they'd sensed Kath's weakness and the opportunity to pounce. An inmate cackled, shrieked _Ferguson!_ and the others joined in again, bars rattled, walls pounded. Marie figured that half of them didn't even know what they were screaming for, just that they were animals, rats in a cage responding to the natural order of things, the chaos. 

One of them screamed something, another laughed – _didja kill someone already, Fergie? Fucking freak!_

“Close your eyes,” Marie instructed gently.

“What?”

“I won't get that much sleep either, with all that noise. Close your eyes. I'll stay in here with you for the night.”

“You don't have to—“

“I'd like to,” Marie interrupted her, waiting until Kath met her eyes to go on. “If you'll let me. If you'd...like the company. I know I would.”

It wasn't a lie. She might have had Reb for company if not for the fact she saw him disappearing into Lou's cell with her, close and giggling, fingers intertwined and heads tucked close in a way that made Marie's heart ache with a quiet, secret longing. She didn't want that from Reb, didn't want it from Lou, didn't want it from Allie or Will, even, though she would have taken it. She just wanted it. From someone. Anyone. Anything. She wanted to feel it again.

Now Kath was her last chance for company for the night, something to chase away her habit of sinking away into her thoughts without heroin, letting the darkness swallow her up entirely until morning light dawned over her bed. And it wasn't about her, but if Kath agreed, it would help the both of them, and surely there was nothing wrong with that.

“I won't...” Kath paused, squeezing her eyes shut. Marie wouldn't have been surprised if she had a migraine. “I won't say no. Thank you.”

“Hey.” She waited until Kath looked at her. “Any time, sweetheart. I mean that. Now try to get some rest.”

Kath turned and shifted restlessly for some time behind her, but never spoke, and Marie saved her the trouble of starting up conversation again. Around the ten minute mark, a tune instinctively came to her mind that she knew too well, old remnants of an even older nursery rhyme she used to sing to Danny, every night for a year once until he grew out of it and insisted he was on to less babyish things. Sometimes she sang it to herself to soothe her nerves, to calm the buzzing of what felt like a thousand insects in her belly and her head, crawling on her skin when she couldn't get heroin in.

It was always a poor substitute, but it worked sometimes, and now she hummed it for Kath under her breath, until finally she looked over and saw that her companion had fallen still and quiet in her bed, her eyes half-lidded, her blinks growing longer and longer until her eyes didn't open again at all.

Marie kept it going until she couldn't anymore, and then she sat there, the floor cold and hard and digging into her tailbone, the edge of the bed pressing along her shoulders, and listened to the prisoners' shouting and cat-calling until there was nothing left but a few distant cries.

That was when she started drifting off too, but before she did she leaned up and tucked the sheets in tight around Kath, following through the motions that came naturally to her now. 

Tuck, pause to brush Kath's hair out of her face – a twitch, and Marie froze, but she didn't wake – and then Marie sat down again, stretching out her legs which were sore from being prone for so long, and laid her head back against the corner of the bed after reaching back to free her hair from its ponytail, brushing it out with her fingers. She could see it from her peripheral vision, blonde mixing with black and silver spread out on the prison-issued sheets, and wondered how Kath might feel about that if she were awake to see it.

Marie looked at it until the light blended with the shadows, and the echoes of inmates' voices faded, and all the world seemed to slow down around her the way she liked, only this time it felt natural and thanks to exhaustion rather than her usual methods of calming herself to sleep. She always dreamed, always felt trapped in them, whether it was a nightmare or a paradise, because she knew she'd wake up at the end and be alone, and feel suffocated, and feel like clawing her skin open and crawling out of it. They'd gotten better recently, even if Allie's attack on her had been something of a setback—but if they were there tonight, night terrors she couldn't force herself out of, she had the feeling that it would still be all right because she knew she'd be waking up here.

Kath wouldn't hurt her. She had no reason to, just as Marie had no reason to hurt her, either, and they were both safe in that knowledge for the time being.

Safe wasn't a feeling Marie was used to, not since arriving at Wentworth for the first time, but she took it in her hands and held on, and let her eyelids fall, slowly.

No one was present to hear the words that left her mouth, and that was somehow comforting in its anonymity, though she could imagine Kath would have liked to hear it, to feel the sentiment ring true or, at the very least, sincere.

“Goodnight, Kath. Sweet dreams.”


End file.
